Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
